"Hi. My name is Jessie Stephens and my Apple Watch has turned me into a d*ckhead."

I knew it wouldn’t end well.

Ever since we bought Dad an Apple Watch for Father’s Day last year he’s answered every phone call with "HI I’VE JUST GOT YOU ON MY WATCH," as though that’s of… any consequence to the person on the other end. 

"Can you hear me okay?" he then yells, because he wants us to know he’s trimming the hedges or mowing the lawn or something equally as productive and yet he can STILL answer our phone calls on his WATCH because the FUTURE has FCKN ARRIVED. 

He sends messages off it that have no purpose except to say "I’m sending you a message off my watch", and when we’re actually in his company he speaks to his watch just to prove to us that it really will call Pop if he asks it too.

The look of gleeful satisfaction all dads get whenever technology does precisely what it is designed to do is something we don’t talk about enough. 

But I digress.

Because like every component of my life now, this is about my Apple Watch and how, in the space of a week, it turned me into a dickhead.

Ahem. 

You see, it began on a lockdown walk with a friend who asked if I might like to know how much REM sleep she had last night.

Why of course I would.

Three hours she said. I realised I didn’t know if that was great or like… a sleep disorder, so she introduced me to her watch.

There were charts and colours and circles and her resting heart rate and it was like a fun game except the game was her health. 

How do you... win? 

I learned that three hours was what we should be aiming for. Which made me curious...

But... how much REM sleep did I have last night? What even IS my heart rate? And what, may I ask, is the point of a walk if it cannot contribute to closing my 'rings'?

(Rings measure how much exercise you've done, how much energy you've burned and how much time you've spent standing. I... think.) 

By the following afternoon I had an Apple Watch. I live in Sydney where I’ll never be able to afford a house, and world closure etc. means I had some money to spend on bullshit capitalist gadgets I absolutely do not need but that promise eternal bliss. Or at the very least a distraction from... *gestures broadly at everything*.

Yes pls.

And now my very favourite lockdown habit is monitoring my heart rate. 

I check it during meetings. I announce it in the middle of phone calls. My partner caught me doing burpees at 2pm the other day because I was trying to see how high I could get it. For no reason... other than to just... know. 

But that’s not all my partner has caught me doing.

He couldn’t get my attention the other night and when he asked what I was doing I replied tonelessly: “just analysing my walking symmetry.”

WHAT THE FUCK IS WALKING SYMMETRY AND MORE IMPORTANTLY WHY IS MINE 1.9%.

He catches me staring lovingly at it every time I get a notification. Opening it with the smugness of someone who paid hundreds of dollars for a product to do a thing it is currently doing. 

My sleep is tracked and measured and recorded. I don’t know what any of it means but I nod proudly in the morning as though to pat myself on the back and say "good sleeping sweetie". 

I stand up midway through video calls because my watch told me to. When people ask why I’m standing I shout "I DON'T WANT TO F*CK WITH MY RINGS" and they nod, full of understanding. 

Whenever I begin any exercise, I announce to no one, "just starting my work out" and then push some button on my watch and - I cannot emphasise this enough - I don’t know what that button does. 

I study my heart rate variability (????) my VO2 max (????) my step length and my resting energy something something. 

The other night I hadn’t closed all my rings so I JUMPED ON THE SPOT FOR FIVE MINUTES HOLDING MY BREASTS BECAUSE I'D TAKEN OFF MY BRA. 

I’m an unofficial ambassador for Apple watches in that they don’t know who I am but all I do is convince people to buy an Apple Watch?? 

Who even am I? And will I ever stop being an insufferable dickhead?

Only time (which I track on my Apple Watch) will tell. 

Now excuse me. My dad is calling. And I just must tell him I've got him on my watch. 

You can buy the Apple Watch SE from $399.

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